


Tentative Steps

by TheRighteousMan (FullmetalFlameElric)



Series: Growing Pains [15]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Coming Out, First Kiss, Friends to Dating, John Arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 01:31:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullmetalFlameElric/pseuds/TheRighteousMan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If only John had been thinking straight... heh... straight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tentative Steps

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah... wrote this while watching Planet Earth. No joke. But yeah, bout time I got this up. YA HEAR THAT MISSTRICKSTER!!?! IT'S UP! YOU CAN STOP BUGGING ME NOW! .... Anyway...
> 
> Ages: 
> 
> John: 14  
> Stiles: 37  
> Derek: 45
> 
> Jackson: 16
> 
> Lydia: 37

John was panicking. There was really no other way to put it. It wasn’t an arm flailing, hyperventilating panic most would expect. No, instead it was a quiet, almost calm panic that comes with realisation that froze John to his seat on his bed. He felt numb. There was no sense of dread or a desperate need for air. It was just numb.

His brain was working overtime on this one as he internally panicked.

“Ok… so you’re gay. Great. So are your parents.” he muttered to himself, running a hand through his chocolate colored hair, the short spikes soft to the touch despite the number of times he’d already repeat the action previously. “No big deal. They’ll accept this. Though mom’ll be crushed. He so wanted grandkids from you. But Laura and Alysa can have them… Let’s be honest, he’ll get them from Alyssa. He can wait a few extra years. Ok, so you’re possibly crushing on your bestfriend. We can work with that too…”

_Yeah, if you change your mind you know where to find me_  
 _But I don't wanna save your reputation_  
 _And never did I think that I_  
 _Would be caught in the way you caught me_  
 _Push another girl aside and just give in_

His mother’s Panic! At the Disco CD played in the background. He’d borrowed it last week and had yet to get it back to him. He’d been meaning to. He shook his head and focused back on the situation at hand.

“Shit… ok… um….” He shifted, glancing around his room. He needed to get out of here.

 

In hindsight, going to Peter probably wasn’t the best idea. Really, John should have seen this coming. The man always acted like he knew more than he let on. And it was a valid theory, really, when considering the knowing smirk that was almost always fixed in place. His mom didn’t trust the man as far as he could throw him, but he had had moments where he’d talked dad out of something stupid.

Had he been thinking straight (heh, straight. That’s funny.) he wouldn’t have even entertained the thought of going to see his great uncle.

Yet here he was, sitting on Peter’s couch, staring back at the man currently smirking like the cat that got the cream.

“John, I am so honored that you came to me with this… predicament of yours..” He purred.

John shivered, backing into the couch more to get just that smidgen further from him. “...Yeah… Starting to wonder why.”

“Because. I was the obvious answer.” Peter preened, taking a sip of his coffee. He smirked over the rim of his mug, watching his blood fidget on the couch.

John groaned. “Oh god…”

“Just tell him.” Peter stated with a shrug.

“Oh yeah. Right. I’m just gonna walk up to my straight best friend and say ‘hey! I’m gay! And I sorta maybe have a tiny massive little big crush on you!’ Yeah! That’ll go peachy!” John snapped, eyes narrowing slightly.

Peter snorted and shook his head. “Really. I doubt Jackson would mind too terribly much if you told him. I mean his parents are gay, after all.”

“He’d never speak to me again. I’m already a freak enough being fourteen and in the junior class with him! Oh god…. Why did it have to be him?” John whimpered, gripping his hair and pulling.

“Please. Just tell him. What could go wrong?”

“A lot could go wrong!”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Oh, you’re being over dramatic.”

“Forget it!” John squeaked, stumbling to his feet and snagging his jacket. “Sorry I stopped by to waste your time!” He added, rushing out the door and slamming it shut.

Peter sipped his coffee. “What a queer child, he is…”

 

“Grandpa, I just…. I dunno what to do…” John sighed, burying his head in his arms and groaning into them. Beside him, John Sr. watched his grandson in mild worry. Setting a hand on the teen’s shoulder, he gave it a gentle squeeze.

“It’ll be ok, Kiddo… I mean, obviously they’re ok with it… After all, Stiles did marry your dad.” He started, thinking it all over. His grandson was gay. Honestly, he was a little surprised. He’d been starting to wonder if his grandson had any interest in dating. So was Stiles actually.

John whimpered. “I know, it’s just… “ He swallowed and ran a hand through his nest of hair. “Mom so badly wants grandkids and…”

“He’ll manage. Besides, there’s always adoption or surrogate. That’s how they had you, afterall.” John Sr. reminded, smiling slightly as he got a groan from the curled up teen.

“... Do you want me to call your dad?”

“No!” John yelped, voice cracking. Ah the lasting remnants of puberty.

“You sure?”

“Yes! Please, don’t call him?” John begged, eyes wide and panicked. “I can’t… I don’t… please…”

“Alright, alright.” John Sr. sighed. “Alright… why don’t you find something on TV to watch and I’ll go get you some tea…” he suggested, patting his grandson’s back and getting up. He stepped into the kitchen and set about putting water in the kettle to brew. In the living room, John flipped through channels, stopping on one of Attenborough’s narrated documentaries. He made sure the teen was distracted before pulling out his cell phone and dialing Lydia’s number.

“Mr. Stilinski. What can I do for you?” Her cheery voice sounded over the other end of the phone line.

“Hello, Lydia. Could I perhaps ask you to call Derek and have him come pick up his son? He made me promise not to call him, but I never said anything about calling you.”

“Of course! I’ll do that now!”

“Thank you, Lydia.” John Sr. stated, hanging up once they’d said a quick goodbye. John was still clueless and the betrayed look he gave his grandfather when Derek pulled up in the driveway wasn’t enough to make him feel bad. He knew it would help.

 

The car was silent, John fidgeting with his shirt sleeves as he stared down at his hands. Beside him, Derek was silent as well, hands steady on the steering wheel as they made their way down the road. John swallowed, finally unable to take the silence.

“Dad-”

“It’s ok, John….” Derek assured him, tone gentle. “... Honest… we’ll love you either way…”

“But… I haven’t even to-”

“Didn’t need to.” Derek hummed as a small smile formed. “Your grandfather had the same look in his eyes as when Stiles told him we were dating… though… with a less homicidal and blood thirsty edge to it and more… fatherly.”

John slumped a bit. “Oh…”

They drove a bit more in silence before Derek spoke up once more. “...So… how’d you figure it out?”

John turned a rather lovely shade of red and ducked his head. “I… uh… I… was just.. going through the photos for… the school yearbook.” He muttered, shifting a bit in his seat. “And… I dunno… just… kinda realised?”

Derek’s smile shifted a bit into something knowing. “Who is he?” he asked.

John blinked. “Wh-what?”

“Who is he?”

He could feel his stomach sinking. “... Jackson…” he whispered.

Derek reached a hand over and set it on his son’s shoulder. “You gonna tell him?”

“I…. I dunno yet…”

“Take a few days to think on it…”

 

The weekend had been nice. John was able to talk things over with his family and settle with it himself. But the return of the week, and thus the school week, his anxiety returned full force. Arriving at school, he glanced back at his mom’s cruiser as Stiles waved and pulled away from the school. He was alone.

“JOHN!”

Damn.

Forcing a grin, John turned to face the teen. With dirty blond hair and dark green, almost brown eyes, Jackson was the sixteen year old version of a teen girl’s dreams. He was well built, popular, and captain of the lacrosse team. Jackson was the eldest son of Danny and Ethan, a born alpha, and a shining mark to the man he was named after and his godfather, Jackson Whittemore.

And he was John’s best friend.

“John! Hey!” Jackson greeted, grinning widely as he loped over and wrapped his arm around the beta’s shoulders and pulled him close. The warm spice scent of cinnamon and apples invaded John, the teen sinking into the familiar embrace.

“Hey… Jackson.” he managed, face heating up at the closeness between them. Jackson grinned and nuzzled him for a second, ruffling the younger’s hair in the process.

“Didn’t hear from you much over the weekend, man! I almost went stir crazy when my dads pulled out the family photo albums!” Jackson laughed, eyes lighting up turning into an almost forest green color.

“Did they seriously just realise you’re a junior?” John managed to ask, lifting a brow. “Cause… mom got that the month before school started. He cried for an hour and refused to let go of me.”

Jackson tossed his head back and laughed, his entire body put into the movement and jostling John slightly with the action. But he didn’t mind. He loved that sound.

“Damn, where were you to save me from them? I dread the day dad finally figures that out.” He chuckled, nudging his head against John’s.

The younger’s blush darkened. “Yeah…”

“So… what’d you do this weekend?”

By the moon, he was doomed...

 

That week was hell for John. He wrestled with himself daily on how to tell Jackson about his weekend revelation. Or, at least, the one concerning his sexuality. He didn’t plan on telling him about his crush. Oh no. No. Definitely not. He managed to avoid it through sheer force of will. So it was only certain it would happen when he was over at Jackson’s for the evening, chemistry text books spread out around them.

Derek was due any second now to pick John up and the teen was silently begging for him to get there before he did anything to make himself look like an idiot.

“...You’ve been quiet…” Jackson spoke up, glancing up as John sat up to begin packing away his books.

John froze, hands shaking slightly as he swallowed and stuffed the last book in his bag. “Sorry… just… had a lot on my mind.”

“....Does it have something to do with why you’ve been so stiff all week?” John didn’t respond so Jackson sat up. “You know… you can talk to me if you ever need to… I won’t judge you. You know that.”

“I know…”

“So…”

A car horn and John jumped, glancing out the window and seeing his father’s car. Relief washed over him and he scrambled to his feet, bag slinging over his shoulder. “I-I gotta go.. see you later? Whoa! There’s a chair there..!” he added, weakly chuckling before slipping from the room.

“John-!” A frustrated sigh and footsteps. Getting outside, John halted as a hand wrapped around his upper arm, pulling him around to face a worried looking Jackson. “John, c’mon. What’s wrong? You’ve got me worried, man…. please, talk to me?”

John hesitated, trying to force back the flood of words, but he didn’t get the chance. The second he saw the worried look the other was giving him, the dam broke.

“I’m gay.” He blurted, blushing heavily. “And I realised this over the weekend and I went to Peter because I wasn’t thinking straight, cause I’m not, and then I went to my grandpa’s and he called Lydia who called my dad to come and get me and then I talked to my parents and then I was trying to figure out how to tell you. Not that I don’t think you’ll have an issue, because, well, you know, two gay dads. But it was ‘cause I was terrified I’d accidentally tell you that I have a not so little, really massive, kinda more than a crush on you and- oh shit…” He groaned, eyes widening.

Jackson just stared at him wide eyed as he let it all sink in. John took the stunned silence as the rejection he expected and pulled away. “S-sorry. I’ll just go an- mph!”

A pair of lips pressed against his in a harder than expected kiss. He froze, eyes going wide as he realised that Jackson was kissing him. Jackson. Was kissing. Him. Jackson. His first kiss was with Jackson.

Oh please don’t let this be a dream.

Tilting his head a bit, John shifted closer as an arm wound around his lower back and pulled him closer. He blinked, dazed slightly, as Jackson pulled back from the kiss and grinned at him.

“A crush huh?” he asked, that same warm look to his eyes as John only flushed darker. He managed a nod and Jackson’s smile widened. “I see… then… how about… I take you out this weekend? On a proper date?”

“Y-you… Want to-?”

“Yeah. I want to.”

The horn honked again and John jumped, glancing back to where he could see Derek smirking inside the car. Swallowing his nerves, he turned back to Jackson. “That would… Yeah. Yes… I’d… I’d like that…”

“Great…”

The horn honked again.

“So.. I’ll pick you up at five? Saturday?”

“Sounds great…”

“Good…”

Another honk.

“I should…”

“Yeah….”

Grinning, John stumbled back slightly as Jackson let him go. He caught himself from falling down the front steps and let out a sheepish laugh. “Oh, hey, there’s stairs there… uh…. yeah. I’ll… um… yeah. Bye…” he squeaked, bolting before he could make more of an idiot of himself.

Jackson watched him, a wide grin in place. Getting into the car, John ducked into his seat, his father chuckling.

“Hush..”

“That was fucking adorable…”

 

3 months later…

 

“Jackson!” John hissed, lightly swatting at the other, faking annoyance. “Jackson! Stop! I’m trying to read!” he gasped, the elder teen removing the textbook he was focusing on and turning his attention to the now bared neck. John let out a soft yelp of surprise before laughing, gently shoving at the other’s chest. “Jackson, stop!”

“Awww…. but you look so pretty in red.” Jackson purred, kissing along the barred skin before nipping lightly at the spot where his shoulder met neck.

John gasped and shoved him off. “Jackson.” he growled softly, frowning. “We talked about this. No marking.”

The elder winced and ducked his head. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…” he muttered.

Looking him over, John sat up and fixed him with a look. Things had been going well. Very well in the last few months. Sure they had their hiccups, but it was normal. But this was something that John was beginning to hate. Jackson had always been territorial and protective. It was just part of being an alpha. He got that. But since they’d started dating it had amplified. He’d talked to his mother about it and all he’d said was it was going to happen. He just needed to put his foot down and make him remember that he wasn’t something fragile.

He could do that.

“...This has nothing to do with that idiot from earlier, does it?” John asked, recalling the man that had hit on him at lunch previously in that day.

Jackson frowned. “He tried to touch you.” He stated, as if that was an excuse enough.

John snorted. “Seriously? Really? That’s your excuse?”

“John-”

“No. You do know I’m a werewolf, too, right?”

“Yeah, but-”

“Which means I can defend myself.” John stated, narrowing his gaze on the other.

“But-”

“No! Damn it, Jackson! This is really beginning to get on my last nerve.” John snarled, eyes flashing gold. Jackson shut his mouth, eyes widening. John was usually rather calm unless he was stressed, and even then he never flashed his eyes at Jackson. Not even when he was being an ass and deserved it. “I am not property. Nor am I something to be kept and protected. I can defend myself. I’m my own person. I don’t need you there to defend my honor. I can do that just fine.”

It was silent for a moment, John snapping his mouth shut to stem his frustrated rant and Jackson in shock. Guilt settled and Jackson shifted uneasily.

“John, I-”

“I think…” John muttered, not lifting his gaze from where he was now glaring at the floor. “That you should go home now…”

“John-”

“Go, Jackson.” Was growled. Wincing, the elder grabbed his books and hesitated.

“I’ll uh… I’m sorry…” he muttered before leaving.

 

“Wanna talk about it?” Stiles asked, glancing at his son while the two of them made supper together.

“Not really…” John sighed, slumping his shoulders. “But I know I should… I snapped at Jackson earlier…”

Stiles hummed, skinning potatoes and then dicing them easily. “... I’m guessing this is related to the alpha male thing we talked about?”

“He got protective after we went out earlier and… I just… I got sick of it.”

“It happens…” Stiles added, nodding knowingly. “Your father and I went through this stage as well. Just… give it tonight and talk to him tomorrow…”

“...You’re sure?”

Stiles chuckled softly and nodded. “Oh yeah… I’m sure. He’ll get it eventually and you two will find a middle ground that works. Promise.”

 

Jackson picked him up the next morning, the two sitting awkwardly in the car on the drive there. Parking at the school, Jackson glanced at John.

“...I’m sorry. You’re right… I-... I’ll… try harder to remember that…”

John nodded, looking down a bit. “I’m sorry, too… I shouldn’t have snapped at you. And I know it’s instinct, but…. it’s annoying.”

That got him a chuckle. “Then you’ll have to help me find a way to make this work for both of us…”

“Yeah…” John sighed, lifting his gaze and blushing as met that familiar smile that always managed to brighten his day. “Yeah I will…”

“We’re good, then?”

“We’re good.” John agreed, nodding. Jackson visibly relaxed in his seat.

“Oh good… cause I really really want to kiss you right now…”

“Why haven’t you, then?” John asked, arching a brow and giggling as Jackson growled playfully and leaned forward to steal a kiss.

They’d work it out. It’d just take a bit of work to get there.

**Author's Note:**

> And thus we begin John's journey... hang on, guys! It's gonna be one hell of a ride!
> 
> The song is from Panic! At the Disco's newest CD. It's called Girls/Girls/Boy. He looks so fucking happy to be "naked" in the video for it. It's actually kinda funny.


End file.
